Limerick seek to join elite ranks

Tomorrow at Semple Stadium Limerick set out in pursuit of a third successive All-Ireland under-21 title. This would place the county in the elite company of Cork and Tipperary as the only counties to have achieved the hat-trick.

Furthermore those counties went on to add a senior All-Ireland to the under-age achievement - albeit after a while in Tipp's case and with only a third of the successful under-21s. In other words, Limerick are playing for high stakes tomorrow.

Manager Dave Keane has just this week been elevated to the senior manager's job and whereas that proved a crown of thorns for Eamonn Cregan last season, the Cork man is the ideal successor having taken charge of the under-21s throughout this successful phase.

Before looking at the match it's intriguing to wonder where on earth all this success originated. When their unbeaten odyssey started two years ago, few gave them much chance against a Clare team that won the minor All-Ireland three years previously. Limerick have had little impact at minor level in recent years and neither have their colleges. The Fitzgibbon exploits of UL owe as much to Clare and Galway as to the indigenous students.

All in all it is a further tribute to Keane's management that he has taken players without the sort of background that suggests bright prospects and moulded them into a deeply impressive unit. Tomorrow's line-up features a dozen of the side that won last year's All-Ireland so he has in effect worked wonders with two cohorts.

Galway's experience has been the diametric opposite.

The county has had no shortage of decorated under-age hurlers coming through. The problem for Galway has been translating this into success at the older level.

In the six years since they last won this title, Galway have lost to the eventual winners and struck a demoralising sequence of losing four successive finals.

This year, things may change. For a start and as manager John Hardiman has pointed out, the players are nearly all graduates of the back-to-back all-Ireland minor wins of 1999 and 2000. This was unprecedented success for the county even by its high standards in the under-18 grade.

Some of the players already have senior experience and a record of interim achievement. Ger Farragher - whose 0-13 against Wexford in the semi-final was an exhibition of dead ball striking - looked an assured point-taker in the senior quarter-final cameo against Clare. Richie Murray was outstanding for UL when they won this year's Fitzgibbon whereas Damien Hayes has been in favour with the senior selectors this year.

The side is strengthened by the return from injury of former minor captain John Culkin (who was given a trot on the senior football team this year) and Tony Óg Regan, son of former Galway senior trainer, Tony "Horse" Regan.

Yet Limerick can boast the same rising morale with the all-clear for their marksman-in-chief, Mark Keane, and versatile ball-player Niall Moran at centrefield.

It is obviously to Galway's disadvantage that the 10-point romp against Wexford was their only outing this season, whereas Limerick had to fight like cranky cats to retain their Munster title. The replayed final against Tipperary twice saw the champions filch injury-time goals to save the day and as the second match went into extra time, you sensed that Tipp's spirit was broken.

They, too, have excellent individuals, none better this season than Eoin Foley, instrumental in both Munster final comebacks and also a goalscorer as Antrim's feisty challenge was firmly dealt with in the semi-final. Centrefield will be the decisive contest, not just as arbiter of which set of talented forwards gets the supply but also in relation to how successfully Farragher can be shut down.

This is Galway's third year playing Limerick and there is confidence in the county that this could be the year that those recent unhappy memories in the grade are laid to rest. But ultimately no one who saw the two Munster finals could be that sanguine about Galway's prospects against such proven and dauntless opponents.

GALWAY: A Diviney; B Mahony, S Kavanagh, J Culkin; F Moore, C Dervan, D Ford; T Óg Regan, G Farragher; R Murray, M Coughlan, K Brady; D Hayes, A Cullinane, D Greene.

LIMERICK: T Houlihan; D Reale, E Mulcahy, M Cahill; E Foley, P O'Dwyer, M O'Brien; P Lawlor, N Moran; C Fitzgerald, J O'Brien, K Tobin; A O'Shaughnessy, P Kirby, M Keane.